Nature's Inequalities
G
eography has fallen on hard times. As a student in elementary
school, I had to read and trace maps, even draw them from mem
ory. We learned about strange places, peoples, and customs, and this
long before anyone had invented the word "multiculturalisme At the
same time, at higher levels far removed, schools of economic and cul
tural geography flourished. In France, no one would think of doing a
study of regional history without first laying out the material conditions
of life and social activity.^1 And in the United States, Ellsworth Hunt
ington and his disciples were studying the ways that geography, espe
cially climate, influenced human development.
Yet in spite of much useful and revealing research, Huntington gave
geography a bad name.^2 He went too far. He was so impressed by the
connections between physical environment and human activity that he
attributed more and more to geography, starting with physical influ
ences and moving on to cultural. In the end, he was classifying civi
lizations hierarchically and assigning the best—what he defined as
best—to the favors of climate. Huntington taught at Yale University
and not coincidentally thought New Haven, Connecticut, had the
world's most invigorating climate. Lucky man. The rest of the world